Marawi Blast: Decoding the Dawlah Islamiyah Threat in the Philippines

Michael HartLeave a comment
On 3 December, an explosion at a Catholic mass in Marawi left four dead. Worshippers were previously targeted in 2019 at a cathedral in Jolo (pictured), killing 20. (Image source: PCOO)

On the first Sunday of December 2023, a bomb exploded during a Catholic mass being held in the gymnasium at Mindanao State University (MSU), in the southern Philippine city of Marawi, which was all but destroyed in 2017 in a five-month battle between the Philippine Army and the Maute and Abu Sayyaf jihadists. Four people were killed by the improvised device during the recent blast at MSU, constructed using a mortar or grenade, which left at least 50 others injured.

Police quickly attributed blame to Maute Group militants affiliated to Dawlah Islamiyah—the term used for the Islamic State in the Philippines. Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) chief Gen. Romeo Brawner indicated the blast was a “retaliatory attack,” after airstrikes killed 11 fighters of another local Dawlah Islamiyah affiliate, the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters (BIFF), several days earlier, further south in Maguindanao del Sur province.

The Marawi blast served as an abrupt reminder of the threat posed by Islamist militants in the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM), which in recent years has seen a marked improvement in security, with the more moderate Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) disarming in exchange for self-rule. The bombing by the Mautes, however, has sparked renewed AFP offensives, with soldiers targeting the BIFF in mid-December along the provincial boundary between Maguindanao del Sur and Cotabato, killing nine BIFF members in the Liguasan Marsh area in a combined aerial and ground operation. The Maute Group was targeted in late-January in Lanao del Sur, with nine militants killed in gun battles that also left four AFP troops wounded.

The clashes raise the specter of renewed jihadist violence as the peace process enters the last year of a six-year transition, set to end in May 2025 when the MILF-led interim authority is due to hand power to an elected regional parliament for the Muslim-majority BARMM. This would mark the final stage of an effort that began in the 1990s to end decades of separatist war. Affiliates of Dawlah Islamiyah—despite their vastly reduced strength—are among opposing forces intent on proving disruptive to this landmark handover, and may look to seize the opportunity to rebound.

Mautes and BIFF

The primary threat emanates from Maute and BIFF remnants, though their leadership has been decimated by the AFP and the structure of these two groups is now unclear. Maute leader Abu Zacaria (otherwise known as Faharudin Hadji Satar) was killed along with finance chief Joharie Sandab last June when troops raided their hideout in Marawi city. The two had reportedly sought an urban safehouse, having slipped out of the remote forested areas of Lanao del Sur and Lanao del Norte where the group is based. Abu Zacaria was also the “emir” of the Islamic State in East Asia—largely a symbolic position, as operational links between the various groups aligned with Dawlah Islamiyah, both in the Philippines and in nearby Indonesia, are minimal or non-existent.

The Mautes and BIFF have remained present in remote areas of Lanao and Maguindanao since the 2017 siege of Marawi, which left most of the city destroyed. (Image source: Mark Jhomel)

One name touted as his replacement, Abu Toraife (or Esmael Abdulmalik), leads a small faction of BIFF rebels in Maguindanao. Several weeks after the killing of Abu Zacaria, an online media outlet associated with the self-proclaimed Islamic State-East Asia Province (ISEAP) posted an image declaring Abu Toraife as his successor as regional “emir,” though it is not known whether this role as figurehead was sought. Reports emerged last September that Abu Toraife may have surrendered along with five of his followers, although this has not been confirmed by the AFP or corroborated by local media outlets. Another BIFF sub-leader thought to be the possible “emir” of Dawlah Islamiyah, Abdullah Sapal, was killed by AFP troops during operations late last year.

Little is known about the group’s remaining structure. It is likely still composed of at least three main factions—the most radical of which is associated with Abu Toraife in addition to others led by Ismael Abubakar (alias ‘Imam Bongos’) and Ustadz Karialan (alias ‘Imam Minimbang’). These factions operate in roughly the same area, but are geographically isolated from Maute remnants further north in Lanao, meaning that although allied there is no direct coordination between the two groups. Also subsumed into or operating alongside BIFF factions are a collection of smaller extremist groups including Al-Khobar—which has been linked to the use of improvised explosive devices (IEDs) and the extortion of local transport companies—and remnants of Ansar Khalifah Philippines (AKP), which has operated further south in Sarangani and South Cotabato provinces. Its leaders, Mohammad Jaafar Maguid and Salahuddin Hassan, were killed by Philippine troops.

Over time, the killing of senior Maute and BIFF leaders by the military—notably Maute founders Abdullah and Omar Maute in the Marawi siege in 2017 and their successor, Abu Dar, in Tubaran in 2019—has encouraged followers to surrender, further weakening both groups. It is estimated that only 30-40 Maute rebels remain, while the number of BIFF fighters may be around 100-200. Despite indications from the government that a “foreign element” is still present, the majority are thought to be Filipino recruits.

Abu Sayyaf

Another group of Islamic State-aligned rebels remain active in the island province of Basilan, to the west of mainland Mindanao, in the form of Abu Sayyaf. It was estimated by the AFP last year to number less than 130—down from 400-500 a decade ago, when the group was notorious for high-profile kidnappings-for-ransom, and later suicide bombings. Abu Sayyaf has launched few proactive attacks in the past two years, while its last well-known leader, Mudzrimar Sawadjaan, was killed by AFP forces on naval patrol in December when they intercepted a militant vessel off the Basilan coast. Sawadjaan had been in hiding since late-2022, when he fled the neighbouring island province of Sulu, where his radical faction was based, to evade the authorities. There, the group is considered near-defeated by the AFP, with Abu Sayyaf’s other island stronghold of Tawi-Tawi, a small archipelago near the Malaysian coast, also declared free from militant influence.

Islamist militants remain a threat in the BARMM ahead of its first elections in May 2025, when the MILF-led interim authority will hand power to an elected parliament. (Image source: BTA)

As a result of the perceived diminishing threat posed by Abu Sayyaf, the kidnap-for-ransom risk in the Sulu and Celebes Seas, which surround the islands, has been downgraded by a regional multilateral monitoring group—the Regional Cooperation Agreement on Combating Piracy and Armed Robbery against Ships in Asia, or ReCAAP—from moderate to low. In addition, Malaysia has relaxed a dusk-to-dawn curfew that had been in place for civilian vessels off the east coast of Sabah state, reducing the number of affected districts from 10 to six, with Tawau the latest to be taken off the list. Abu Sayyaf had in past years infiltrated eastern Malaysia, and set up small camps in remote coastal areas, but no longer has a presence there. It is also no longer active on the Zamboanga Peninsula, with trilateral maritime patrols carried out by the Philippine coast guard and navy—with Malaysian and Indonesian naval support—preventing the movement of rebels.

Abu Sayyaf could yet re-emerge. It has persisted since the early 1990s, but is in dire condition, given its degraded capabilities and isolation in Basilan, while it is also struggling to recruit. The death of Mudzrimar Sawadjaan, which followed the killing of his predecessor as group leader, and uncle, Hatib Hajan Sawadjaan, in July 2020, has dismantled the family that have been at the center of Abu Sayyaf in Sulu province and behind its adherence to Islamic State ideology in recent years. If the group were to rebound, it would likely be in the form of a bandit or criminal-type organization, which would have to rebuild resources locally before returning to the tactics more associated with Islamist extremism. Since late last year, the AFP has reoriented its forces from across the island chain under a new task force in Basilan, to tackle the group’s remnants.

Ongoing threat

To dismantle Abu Sayyaf, the Mautes and the BIFF completely, however, will be easier said than done. The AFP chief told reporters last July that the military could achieve “total victory” against Islamic State-linked groups by the end of 2023, but this has not been realized. The groups active on mainland Mindanao, in particular, may sense an opportunity as the BARMM transition nears its end, and will not give up with the region’s future still hanging in the balance. MILF chair Al Haj Murad Ebrahim, who also leads the interim Bangsamoro government, has warned that Dawlah Islamiyah is attempting to recruit from his forces as they demobilize. ISEAP has also been more active with online propaganda, claiming responsibility for attacks, including the MSU bombing.

There is still a chance that groups under the Islamic State banner could rebound—yet with the local element, rather than international jihadism, perhaps the most likely driver. The multitude of extremist elements has been around since the MILF and an older separatist group, the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF), began to moderate and seek a political resolution more than three decades ago. More radical offshoots, including the Mautes and the BIFF, then proliferated from 2010 onward, as the peace accord between the MILF and the Philippine government drew nearer. This founding cause remains, and these now-Islamic State affiliates still exist very much in opposition to the peace process, which they have in the past only responded to with violence. It remains to be seen whether attacks such as the Marawi bombing represent the dying embers of these groups, or a reignition of their campaign in the build up to the crucial BARMM elections.

A version of this article is also published on Asia Sentinel.

Southern Thailand Peace Dialogue Stalls amid Post-Election Political Tumult

Michael HartLeave a comment
Since a coup led by Prayuth Chan-ocha in 2014, his Junta and then quasi-civilian government have made little progress in peace talks with southern rebels. (Image Source: Takeaway)

Thailand’s political tumult is over—for now at least—after an extended three-month wait for a new prime minister following the 14 May elections. With Move Forward and its energetic leader Pita Limjaroenrat thwarted—despite winning the most seats in parliament—second-placed Pheu Thai was eventually able to form a coalition in support of its candidate Srettha Thavisin. The government he leads now contains the military-backed conservative parties that Pheu Thai campaigned against.

One of the most pressing challenges this new government faces is to reinvigorate peace talks with Muslim rebels in Thailand’s south, which were on hold amid the prolonged post-election stalemate. Talks between the last government, led by Prayuth Chan-ocha, and the main rebel group—Barisan Revolusi Nasional (BRN)—took place over the past three years but delivered little real progress. Independence for the four insurgency-affected provinces of Yala, Pattani, Narathiwat, and Songkhla has always been off the table, but the contentious issue of the final political status of the region—where many Malay residents have called for autonomy from Buddhist-majority Thailand—has yet to be substantively discussed.

Dialogue with the BRN

When the current peace process began in 2020, hopes were initially raised. For the first time, Thai negotiators were talking face-to-face with the BRN—which controls most of the estimated 3,000 or so rebels in southern Thailand. Earlier talks from 2014 to 2019 under the former Prayuth-led military junta had engaged a different group, Mara Patani, which represented an array of separatist forces in the south but proved unable to stem attacks by BRN fighters. The talks with the BRN, facilitated by Malaysia, got underway with two rounds of dialogue held in Kuala Lumpur in January–March 2020 but hit a major snag with the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, leaving the parties unable to meet in-person for another two years.

Last year saw the process finally restart. Talks in Kuala Lumpur in April 2022 led to a 40-day ceasefire covering the holy month of Ramadan, which held firm and built momentum at the negotiating table. The two sides formed an initial working group to discuss violence reduction, political solutions, and public consultation. Yet a further round of dialogue last August ended without any concrete results. The talks were then placed on hold again ahead of Malaysia’s elections in November, after which new prime minister Anwar Ibrahim appointed the country’s former army chief Zulkifli Zainal Abidin as facilitator to the southern Thai peace process, replacing long-serving Abdul Rahim Noor.

Anwar reaffirmed Malaysia’s commitment to hosting talks and said his government wants to reduce the “trust deficit” that exists between Malays and the Thai authorities. In a meeting with counterpart Prayuth in Bangkok earlier this year, Anwar stated that concerns over religious freedom and language rights in Thailand’s southernmost provinces—which maintain close cultural ties with Malaysia—need to be addressed as part of any peace deal. The southern region, which once formed the territory of the Islamic sultanate of Patani until its conquest by the Kingdom of Siam in the late-1700s, was split from Malaysia by the 1909 Anglo-Siamese treaty. Given this history and more recent concerns over maintaining security on its northern border, Malaysia’s role is vital to the legitimacy of the talks.

A dialogue process between the Thai government and Mara Patani up to 2019 stagnated as negotiators were unable to prevent insurgent BRN attacks. (Image Source: Prachatai)

Kuala Lumpur hosted a new round of dialogue in late-February, with both sides agreeing to a Joint Comprehensive Plan Towards Peace (JCPP). At a press conference after the meeting, flanked by both parties, Zulkifli expressed hope for a peace agreement within two years. Yet the JCPP constitutes no more than a vague commitment to continue dialogue on violence reduction, public consultation, and political solutions. There is no pathway with specific milestones toward an envisioned final endpoint. While the BRN has spoken of a future “Patani Darussalam” autonomous region with Malay as the official language and an Islamic education and justice system, it remains unclear whether the Thai state—either military or civilian-ruled—would countenance any form of self-governance.

PULO sidelined (so far)

Another issue in the peace process concerns the exclusion of rebel groups aside from the BRN. The Patani United Liberation Organization (PULO), under Kasturi Mahkota, has proved disruptive. Last year, PULO renewed its armed campaign after a long period of dormancy and called for a place at the negotiating table. Kasturi has remarked that “Patani doesn’t only belong to the BRN,” yet has said his group would be unwilling to enter the current peace process under the framework of the Thai constitution, which rules out a breakaway state through its central provision that Thailand is “one and indivisible Kingdom.” At present, with fewer than 100 fighters, PULO poses only a limited threat in the south, with the BRN responsible for the majority of attacks targeting government troops.

Malaysian facilitator Zulkifli claimed after the talks earlier this year that the BRN has, in principle, given its consent for other insurgent groups, such as PULO, to be involved in future talks. However, no agreement has been reached on broadening representation on the rebel side or on what format such an arrangement would take. It is also unclear whether the Thai panel would accept talking to other actors separately to the BRN.

At the last round of talks in Kuala Lumpur, scheduled in March, the BRN panel failed to show up, leaving the Malaysian facilitator and the Thai side to talk alone. Zulkifli later explained that the BRN was in the process of appointing a new leader of its negotiating team. Further talks set for June were postponed pending the outcome of the Thai elections on 14 May, with the prolonged period of post-election uncertainty leaving the peace process effectively stalled.

Post-election impasse

Of the major parties that contested the elections, Move Forward had presented the most radical agenda on resolving the conflict in southern Thailand. Its plan, backed by several smaller parties in a proposed eight-member coalition, aimed to create a more conducive atmosphere for peace talks by dissolving the military-led Internal Security Operations Command (ISOC) and the Southern Border Provinces Administrative Center (SBPAC). Move Forward intended to replace these two heavily securitized agencies—disliked by many Malay residents in the south—with an interim civilian-led body ahead of further peace talks.

Malay residents in Thailand’s four southern provinces have lived under emergency rule since 2005, when the government of Thaksin Shinawatra was in power. (Image Source: Udeyismail)

Move Forward also pledged to ease draconian measures under the Emergency Decree, which has been in place in southern Thailand since 2004. These laws have allowed government troops and Thai paramilitary forces to oversee a vast network of roadside security checkpoints and detain suspected rebels for up to 30 days without charge. Allegations that soldiers have mistreated suspected rebels in custody have fermented deep mistrust in communities and left Malay residents fearful of suspicion by association. Ending this pervasive militarized culture in the south may be key to ensuring public support for the peace process, which has so far been limited.

Yet with Move Forward’s proposed coalition thwarted by the military-appointed Senate, Pheu Thai will now lead the next government, with business magnate Srettha Thavisin as prime minister. The Pheu Thai-led coalition had to bring on board pro-military parties Palang Pracharath and the United Thai Nation Party (UTNP)—despite their heavy defeat at the polls—to secure the backing of the Senate. Pheu Thai’s position on resolving the southern conflict is less clear, yet party figurehead and former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra—who returned from exile abroad in late August as Pheu Thai clinched power—launched a fierce crackdown on southern rebels in the 2000s. His hardline policies raised hostilities in the south and boosted support among Malays for the separatist cause.

The military will remain a powerful force in Thailand, with its political proxies propping-up the Pheu Thai-led government. Amid the post-election turbulence, the military commander for the southern provinces had outlined plans to gradually reduce troop numbers in the southern region by 2027, in a bid to supposedly calm tensions and assist with peace talks. Yet any such phased withdrawal will be dependent on progress at the negotiating table and the halting of rebel ambushes on government troops, which continue unabated in insurgency-hit rural areas. The fear of many in the south is that with a new government that does not contain Move Forward, it may be more of the same from Pheu Thai and the military: empty rhetoric, a stagnant dialogue process, and little hope of peace.

A version of this article was first published on Asia Sentinel on 22 August. The article has been updated to reflect that the Pheu Thai-led governing coalition is now in place.

After Jose Maria Sison’s Death, is the New People’s Army Crumbling?

Michael HartLeave a comment
The administration of “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. has the NPA in its sights, four decades after his father’s failed quest to end the insurgency under martial law. (Image Source: PCOO)

“The greatest stumbling block to peace for the Philippines is gone.” That was the reaction of the Philippine government in December after the death of New People’s Army (NPA) leader Jose Maria Sison, aged 83, in exile in the Netherlands. Sison had led the Maoist rebel movement—which has waged war against Manila’s forces across the archipelagic nation since 1969—since its beginnings, having founded the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) a year earlier. The NPA, as the CPP’s armed wing, has battled since then to replace the government with a socialist one-party state.

At its peak during the dictatorship of Ferdinand Marcos Sr. in the 1980s, the NPA could count upon 25,000 fighters and regularly ambushed government troops and police officers on patrol in the countryside. For decades, the NPA has exerted control over rural communities through intimidation, threats of violent retribution for opponents, and the collection of so-called “revolutionary taxes.”

Yet according to the Philippine military, the NPA’s days are numbered. Just before Sison’s passing, the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) reported that only 24 of 89 guerilla fronts remained active nationwide—with the group’s strength having reduced from 4,000 rebels in recent years to 2,112. It is estimated that just 1,800 firearms remain in its arsenal. And now, with no figurehead having emerged to replace Sison, the administration of Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. has the NPA in its sights, four decades after his father’s failed quest to end the insurgency under martial law.

Leadership vacuum

The leadership void at the top of the NPA is stark. Sison’s most obvious successors—Benito and Wilma Tiamzon—were recently confirmed by the CPP to have died last year in a disputed clash with the military in Catbalogan, Samar. Benito, 71, had served as chair of the CPP’s executive committee while his wife Wilma, 70, was Secretary-General. Both had been allies of Sison since their days as youth activists in the 1960s. His only other potential successor, Luis Jalandoni, is 87 and has lived in exile for years. It appears there is no one with the stature of Sison to inspire the next generation.

The military has been keen to draw attention to the NPA’s struggles. The AFP chief in the Visayas—covering the Philippines’ central belt of provinces—Maj.-Gen. Benedict Arevalo has said the NPA is “drastically degraded” in the region. In the eastern Visayas, the NPA is leaderless after losing four key commanders over the past year, and the AFP claims “no one is giving them [the rebels] instructions.” According to the AFP, only two NPA fronts remain in the region, with around 200 fighters each. Most are thought to be hiding out in the mountains of Samar and largely refrain from attacking soldiers for fear it will expose their positions. Earlier this month, Arevalo said the remaining rebels in the eastern Visayas were “tired due to constant movement [between camps] and have no safe place to hide.”

The NPA has fought a “protracted people’s war” in the Philippines since the 1970s, based on the ideology of its late founder Jose Maria Sison. (Image source: Christian Razukas)

In the western Visayas, the AFP claims NPA rebels are increasingly demoralized and have “no clear operational direction” after their commander Rogelio Posadas—responsible for operations in Bohol, Cebu, Siquijor and Negros Island—was killed in an encounter with government soldiers. Troops have taken control of many remote villages previously under NPA influence, stymying rebel recruitment.

NPA nearing defeat?

In the NPA stronghold of eastern Mindanao, the trajectory is similar. Its most senior commander in the region, Menandro Villanueva, was killed by troops in Davao de Oro last year. The AFP says there are now just four active rebel fronts left in the region, down from 32 in 2017, when the AFP stepped up its campaign after peace talks with the CPP faltered under former president Rodrigo Duterte.

The NPA’s losses have led his successor Marcos to declare that “half-a-century’s fight with insurgents is coming to an end.” The National Security Council (NSC) declared “strategic victory” over the NPA in April, and said it foresees the AFP securing “total victory” against the rebels within two years.

The government credits the degrading of the NPA not only to AFP offensives, but also to the creation of a National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC) in 2018. This body has engaged NPA commanders at the local level, and encouraged insurgents to lay down their arms in return for livelihood support under the Enhanced-Comprehensive Local Integration Program (E-CLIP). It has also directed development funds to rebel-influenced villages to blunt its rural support base.

The NTF-ELCAC was established by Duterte after he ended national-level negotiations with the CPP leadership. Marcos has rejected resuming talks and persisted with Duterte’s strategy. Arguably, after Sison’s death and the demise of the Tiamzons, there is now nobody left to negotiate with. Manila hopes the symbolic blow of Sison’s death, and the resulting hit to morale, will lead more NPA rebels to surrender. There is controversy over exactly how many have surrendered to-date—with the task force accused of listing NPA supporters and the family members of ex-rebels as former combatants.

Isolated strongholds

The CPP has acknowledged suffering setbacks but denies the extent of losses from its ranks. It also rejects claims by the AFP that few rebel fronts remain active. Is the NPA really on the brink of defeat after Sison’s death, as the AFP claims? Looking at rebel activity in 2023 indicates that it is struggling.

Offensives by Philippine troops have reduced the NPA’s strength since peace talks were halted by former president Rodrigo Duterte in February 2017. (Image Source: Matthew Hulett)

From 1 January to 14 June, the NPA has been active in 29 provinces, with at least 77 armed clashes and violent incidents involving the group having taken place. This indicates rebel presence across wide swathes of the NPA’s historical areas of operation, from northern Luzon to Mindanao. The NPA is, however, firmly on the retreat, with proactive roadside ambushes and bombings an increasingly rare occurrence. This is borne out by the casualty figures from clashes so far this year, with 76 NPA rebels killed compared to just six AFP troops.* Most clashes were initiated by government soldiers—either while encountering rebels on routine patrol or during targeted intelligence-based operations.

NPA activity has remained prevalent in Eastern Mindanao, Samar, Masbate and on Negros Island, indicating that the group is still holding out in some of its traditional strongholds. Yet even in these areas, the rebels’ influence over residents has significantly reduced as the NPA lacks the capacity it once had to coerce entire rural communities into compliance. Arson attacks on firms that refuse to bow to extortion demands, and raids on businesses to steal weapons from private security guards, are becoming much less frequent, limiting the rebels’ ability to sustain and finance their campaign.

Rebel amnesty?

With the NPA in decline, the government may yet bolster AFP offensives and the efforts of the NTF-ELCAC with an amnesty law, aiming to persuade remaining rebels to surrender without the threat of facing court over already-filed criminal charges. The NTF-ELCAC has recommended the amnesty to President Marcos, while AFP chief Gen. Andres Centino has said the military would support it. If such a law is enacted—as was the case for a smaller, now-defunct Maoist rebel group, the Revolutionary Proletarian Army-Alex Boncayao Brigade (RPA-ABB)—the NPA will struggle to hold on to its fighters.

The CPP maintains that rank-and-file NPA members will not defect, retorting that any amnesty offer would be “rejected by revolutionaries who are whole-heartedly committed to serving the oppressed and exploited masses.” If that is true, the CPP must hope this ideology—which has sustained its five-decade insurgency in the Philippine countryside—does not perish with its founder Jose Maria Sison.

*Data on areas of NPA activity, violent events, and casualties in 2023 is from this author’s monitoring of incident reports.

A version of this article is also published on Asia Sentinel.

The Fading Fight of the Mautes and Dawlah Islamiyah in the Philippines

Michael HartLeave a comment
Islamic State-affiliated Maute and BIFF militants now number in the low-hundreds, and have retreated to remote camps under pressure from Philippine troops. (Image source: US Navy)

In mid-December, Philippine troops launched a pre-dawn operation in the far south targeting what remains of the Maute group in a remote forested area of Marogong, Lanao del Sur province. Locals had reported sighting 30 to 40 armed men near their village, but the militants fled before soldiers arrived to discover a hastily abandoned training camp and bomb-making site. The military revealed intelligence reports had placed Maute leader Faharudin Hadji Satar (alias Abu Zacaria)—the alleged emir of “Dawlah Islamiyah” or the Islamic State in East Asia—in the area along with a small band of followers. This could be all that remains of the extremist group, which has operated in the shadows since most of its hundreds-strong fighting force was killed in the Marawi siege five years ago.

Further south, makeshift camps of the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom fighters (BIFF)—also under the Dawlah Islamiyah banner—were captured in the marshlands of Maguindanao in the final months of the year. Like the Mautes, the BIFF’s strength has been severely weakened by the military since the Marawi siege. The decline of these groups has coincided with the establishment of the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM), which in the last four years has seen moderate separatist rebels in the southern Philippines lay down their arms in return for self-governance. With the tide turning towards peace, is the fight of Dawlah Islamiyah in Mindanao nearing its end?

Decline of Maute in Lanao del Sur

The Maute group suffered heavy losses attempting to take over Marawi city in 2017 alongside Abu Sayyaf. Their bid to establish an Islamic caliphate ended after five months, when Philippine troops retook the city and killed its leaders, brothers Abdullah and Omar Maute. Their successor, Owaydah Marohombsar (alias Abu Dar), was killed in a shootout with the military in Tubaran, Lanao del Sur, in March 2019. The remaining Maute fighters have lain low, with little activity reported since an aerial military offensive targeting a remote jihadi camp in Maguing in early 2022 left seven fighters dead.

Around that time, the Philippine armed forces identified Abu Zacaria as leader of the Mautes and as the Islamic State’s new chief in the region. A propaganda video released online by the militant group later showed a masked figure standing in front of 34 armed rebels, purportedly filmed in the jungles of Lanao. The jihadist claimed to represent the East Asian wilayat (or province) of Dawlah Islamiyah, and pledged allegiance to Islamic State in the Middle East. Additional propaganda materials denoted areas of activity in the western Mindanao provinces of Lanao del Sur, Lanao del Norte and Bukidnon.

The recording called on all Muslims in the Philippines to join Dawlah Islamiyah. While the identity of those featured in the video was obscured, it likely depicts Abu Zacaria and his followers. The footage corroborates recent military estimates indicating that the Maute group has few active members left.

Airstrikes conducted by the Philippine Air Force have weakened the Maute group in Lanao del Sur and remnants of the BIFF further south in Maguindanao. (Image source: Diego Roxas)

After the Maguing offensive the Philippine army remarked that Maute presence was geographically limited to remote areas of Lanao del Sur, but that they were “trying to recruit more members.” Last month, after seizing the training camp in Marogong, the military said that around 40 rebels had been monitored in the area. Some were believed to be remnants of the 2017 Marawi cohort, while others were new recruits, including teenage-looking rebels brought to the secluded site to receive training.

BIFF under pressure in Maguindanao

The BIFF is also running short on fighters. Immediately after the Marawi siege, its ranks swelled as it welcomed foreign recruits and former Maute members. It clashed regularly with government forces in 2018–2020 and carried out high-profile bombings targeting shopping malls in the urban centers of Isulan and Cotabato. Yet repeated aerial bombardments by the Philippine military have killed scores of BIFF rebels, and limited its operating space to Liguasan Marsh and adjacent municipalities in rural Maguindanao. The BIFF’s manpower may have fallen from 300–400 in recent years to less than 100.

Three factions of the group remain. The most radical faction, affiliated to the Islamic State, is led by Esmael Abdulmalik (alias Abu Toraife), while the others are commanded by Ismael Abubakar (Imam Bongos) and Ustadz Karialan (Imam Minimbang). All three BIFF factions—which cooperate in a loose strategic alliance and have no centralized leadership—are considered by the army to be members of Dawlah Islamiyah. The military has also tagged a faction of Abu Sayyaf, led by Mundi Sawadjaan and active in the nearby island province of Sulu, as another local group still affiliated to the Islamic State.

The BIFF retains the capacity to construct crude improvised bombs, and last year was blamed by the authorities for bombing passenger buses in Koronadal and Tacurong as part of “diversionary tactics” to deflect from the military pressure it is facing. No sustained fighting between Philippine forces and the BIFF has taken place since late 2021, indicating the group has shifted to a defensive footing after suffering significant losses. Smaller skirmishes have still taken place. In one such incident, figurehead Abu Toraife was reported to have been “seriously wounded” by artillery fire in Datu Salibo last year.

Moro youth vulnerable to recruitment

Military operations have reduced the strength of Dawlah Islamiyah, and the creation of the BARMM has blunted its support base. The separatists of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front and Moro National Liberation Front—which fought for autonomy for decades and remain heavily influential—have both joined the political process, sidelining the ideology of radical offshoots like the Mautes and the BIFF.

Yet a recent report by the Institute for Autonomy and Governance, based in Cotabato, warned that Moro youth remain vulnerable to the pull of extremist groups. The study, which surveyed 800 youth living in major cities and conflict-affected rural areas of the BARMM, found that half of respondents saw jihad (armed struggle) as an obligation of every Muslim, whilst 68% agreed that “discrimination against Moros is enough justification to bear arms and fight.” Marginalized youth were found to be particularly vulnerable, with poverty and lack of education the main push factors for joining militant groups—which were reported to lure young people with the promise of cash, guns, and cellphones.

Violence involving Islamist militant groups in the southern Philippines has decreased since the creation of the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in 2019. (Image source: BARMM Parliament)

Livelihood aid provided to surrendered militants by the Philippine government, as part of programs to combat violent extremism, has served as a counterweight to these economic gains. In the longer-term, however, the problem of jihadist recruitment can only be tackled by development that offers job opportunities and a sustainable alternative to militancy for marginalized youth in the BARMM.

BARMM the antidote to extremism

There are signs of progress. The poverty rate among families in the BARMM has fallen from 56% in 2018—before the self-governed region was inaugurated—to 30% in 2021. Yet the BARMM still lags behind all other regions of the Philippines, which has a national poverty rate of 18%. It is hoped that economic growth in the BARMM, traditionally driven by agriculture, mining, and fishing, will expand to other sectors such as banking and tourism as separatism recedes. Growth is already at 7.5% while investment has topped US$150 million since the BARMM was formed in 2019. This exceeds the total received in three decades by its predecessor, the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM).

Philippine president Ferdinand Marcos Jr. has pledged continued support for the BARMM during its post-conflict transition, and the political and economic success of the region will be vital to diminish the message of the Islamic State as its campaign fades. While Cotabato city will play a symbolic role as the administrative capital, it is hoped that Marawi city—rebuilt after its near total destruction by the Mautes in the siege five years ago—can reemerge as a major trading hub and reclaim its status as the bustling “Islamic City” of Mindanao. As Philippine troops track down the remaining jihadists, a strong BARMM must emerge if the lands once sought by Dawlah Islamiyah are to remain at peace.

A version of this article was first published by Asia Sentinel.

Gauging the Strength of Myanmar’s Anti-Coup Resistance Forces

Michael HartLeave a comment
Since the February 2021 coup, People’s Defence Forces operating in the northeast have been backed by the Kachin Independence Army to oppose the junta. (Image source: Paul Vrieze)

In the weeks after Myanmar’s military seized power in a coup on 1 February 2021, its increasingly violent crackdown on peaceful protesters saw street demonstrations quickly evolve into an armed insurgency. New resistance forces, assembled to oppose the junta installed by army chief Gen. Min Aung Hlaing, have since proliferated across the country, adding to an already complex set of ethnic armed groups that have battled the military for control of remote border regions for generations.

Post-coup, war is no longer restricted to Myanmar’s mountainous hinterlands and has come to its central plains, which are predominantly home to the majority Bamar population and had previously been free of rebellion. The new resistance, taking in People’s Defense Forces (PDFs) and other local militias aligned with the exiled National Unity Government (NUG), is stretching the resources of the military. But how strong really is Myanmar’s armed resistance, and can it threaten the junta’s rule?

Conflict in Bamar heartland

The post-coup resistance began to take shape in May 2021, when the NUG—composed mostly of elected parliamentarians from the ousted National League for Democracy (NLD)—announced the formation of PDFs, later declaring a “defensive war” against the junta. As of June 2022, it claimed that more than 500 such groups were affiliated with the parallel government—though others have opted to remain independent, including local defense groups that operate in cities and rural areas.

For those that are affiliated, the NUG has tried to unify them through a central command structure. These groups receive funding from the government-in-exile, and according to its defense minister U Yee Mon consist of 50,000–100,000 fighters. The NUG claimed in September that resistance forces and ethnic armies collectively controlled over half of Myanmar. Yet that does not equal governance or uncontested authority in many regions, instead reflecting a degree of local control. PDF presence in particular can quickly be eroded by military offensives, making territorial claims difficult to assess.

What does represent a noticeable change from before the coup is the widespread presence of anti-government resistance forces in the central regions of Magway, Mandalay, and Sagaing. The Bamar majority that populates these areas was “pacified” to a large extent in the years prior to the military takeover due to its broad support for the NLD government, led by Aung San Suu Kyi, which the army ruled alongside for five years. As soon as her administration was toppled by the coup, any tolerance of the military among NLD voters evaporated and the ensuing crackdown led many to take up arms.

PDFs in central Myanmar have proliferated rapidly and now pose a major problem logistically for the military, denying it a previously safe route to transport soldiers, weapons and equipment to confront armed groups operating in ethnic states in the north (Kachin), east (Shan) and south (Kayin). Convoys are now at high risk of ambush, and junta resources are stretched more thinly as troops battle PDFs.

A mismatch in capabilities

The military is, however, still far stronger than the resistance. It has up to 356,000 active troops and another 107,000 serving in paramilitary units, and is assisted by pro-regime Pyusawhti militias which have become more active in response to the anti-coup backlash. Regime soldiers have the weight of a large conventional army behind them, with access to automatic rifles, tanks and armored vehicles.

Police and military forces loyal to junta chief Gen. Min Aung Hlaing have been stretched by the uprising by People’s Defense Forces in Myanmar’s central plains. (Image source: Adam Jones)

NUG-aligned forces have come up against this using mostly improvised weapons—with only a small proportion of PDFs supported by large ethnic armies in the northeast having access to modern rifles and rocket-propelled grenade launchers. Across much of the country, PDF members have worked in makeshift factories to construct their own basic weapons from locally-available materials—learning primarily from videos shared on social media and from rebels with existing knowledge and skills. It is dangerous work and many have died in accidents while assembling or testing explosives or firearms.

Weapons commonly manufactured by PDFs include slingshots, crude single-shot firearms, remotely-detonated improvised explosive devices (IEDs), and landmines. Some claim to have produced mortar and artillery systems with a range of 2–9km, firing shells filled with lead and scrap metal, though the reliability and effectiveness of such weapons is unproven. Rebels are also reported to have captured firearms from the army and in some cases have developed 3D printed guns to use in guerilla attacks.

Battle for Myanmar’s skies

As the conflict has intensified, PDFs have begun to launch more ambitious front-foot operations, in particular using drones re-fitted to drop explosives on junta positions. This tactic minimizes the risk of rebel casualties while allowing PDFs to engage in more strategic rather than reactive warfare, as has been the case for much of the insurgency, with camera-fitted reconnaissance drones also used to identify army outposts and track troop movements. The NUG recently established its own drone unit, “Federal Wings,” to centralize operations. It views this as a precursor to an eventual air force.

The military has responded by installing anti-drone guns and signal jammers at vulnerable outposts, while deploying surveillance drones of its own and mimicking the tactics of the PDFs by using drones to drop bombs. In this area though, it has so far been the tech-savvy rebels who hold an advantage.

Yet despite this ingenuity, the military retains its overall dominance in the skies, boasting an arsenal of fighters jets and attack helicopters mostly supplied by China and Russia. This includes MiG-29, K-8, Yak-130, and Nanchang A-5 aircraft, and Mi-17 and Mi-24 helicopters. The military has also deployed tactical unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) to monitor rebel movements ahead of strikes. An air attack on a music concert organized by a major ethnic armed group in Kachin state in October, which killed 60 people, exemplifies the junta’s deadly supremacy from the air. Schools and monasteries allegedly used as PDF bases have also been targeted, with the junta employing largely indiscriminate tactics.

The junta’s escalating air campaign looks set to continue unimpeded. Rebels lack access to surface-to-air missiles needed to shoot down attack jets, while no outside actors will support the imposition of a “no-fly zone.” The West is preoccupied with the war in Ukraine and sees little strategic interest in Myanmar, while ASEAN has stayed out of the conflict in line with its principle of non-interference. Neighboring powers India and China have effectively supported the junta’s rule and would object to internationalization of the conflict on their borders, meaning that PDFs are essentially on their own.

Ethnic armed organizations

One element that could tilt the balance is the position of Myanmar’s major ethnic armed groups, of which there are more than 20. While a few—notably the Kachin Independence Army (KIA) in the far north and the Karen National Union (KNU) in the south—have provided training and shelter to PDFs and even fought alongside them, most have stayed out of the post-coup conflict and are reluctant to work with the Bamar-dominated opposition, given the historical marginalization of ethnic minorities.

Conflict erupted in Bamar majority areas after the army deposed Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy and violently cracked down on street protests. (Image source: MgHla)

The most powerful ethnic armies, including the 30,000-strong United Wa State Army (UWSA) which controls territory along the border with China, have prioritized keeping stability in their own areas of interest. The smaller groups—some of which had inked a nationwide ceasefire with the military prior to the coup—have also adopted a broadly neutral position, while holding out for a future peace deal. In August, the weaker ethnic armies rejected a call by the military regime to become part of a border guard force, arguing that self-determination and ethnic minority rights must first be secured through negotiations—there is little hope for that, with the coup essentially having ended the peace process.

War in a fragmented nation

Myanmar now faces an escalating and deeply intractable multi-fronted armed conflict. PDFs will be able to deny the military effective control over large swathes of the country through a resolute and widespread guerilla insurgency, while lacking capacity to defeat a larger conventional military force. Meanwhile, ethnic armed groups retain their dominance in the northeast and other border regions, where state presence has been further weakened as junta resources come under increasing strain. In a fragmented land of many homelands, and with a large segment of the Bamar ethnic majority at war with the military, it is hard to see a way out. Only an eventual negotiated solution, resulting in a federal system that grants power and a tangible sense of quasi-nationhood to ethnic minorities, will keep Myanmar intact as a governable state. There is no doubt that the Tatmadaw is the major block to this eventuality—which is ironic as it has long claimed to be the protector of Myanmar, a unifying force. Its ill-judged coup has served only to ignite violence and fuel more widespread internal strife.

A version of this article was first published on Asia Sentinel.

Abu Sayyaf Under Rising Pressure in Southern Philippines’ Maritime Borderlands

Michael HartLeave a comment
Trilateral naval patrols by the Philippines, Malaysia and Indonesia in the Sulu Sea since 2017 have restricted the transit of Abu Sayyaf fighters. (Image Source: US Pacific Fleet)

Five years ago, the notorious Philippine militant group Abu Sayyaf had aligned itself with the Islamic State and was in the midst of its most audacious assault. Led by Isnilon Hapilon, it battled Philippine forces alongside militants from the Maute Group and Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters for five months in the southern city of Marawi. This brazen attempt to seize territory and create a caliphate followed a decade in which Abu Sayyaf had ruled the Sulu and Celebes Seas off Mindanao’s western coast, where it regularly kidnapped seafarers and collected millions of dollars in ransom payments.

Yet the fortunes of Southeast Asia’s most feared jihadi group have altered dramatically. Abu Sayyaf is now in steep decline. Hapilon was killed during the final days of fighting in Marawi and each of his successors have since met the same bloody end. Its funding from the Islamic State has dried up—as have foreign recruits. Philippine forces now have the militants on the retreat and with support from Malaysian troops in Sabah have cut-off maritime corridors for jihadists hoping to travel from abroad. Local dynamics, too, on the islands where Abu Sayyaf still exists, suggest it is firmly on the back foot.

Basilan influence fading

It is on Basilan, where Hapilon’s faction used to reign supreme, that Abu Sayyaf’s losses have been most visible. His successor, Furuji Indama, was killed in September 2020 amid heavy clashes with the military in Zamboanga Sibugay province, where he was tracked-down after escaping Basilan. Attacks on Basilan near ceased after Indama’s death, and Abu Sayyaf’s latest leader there, Radzmil Jannatul (alias Khubayb), was killed by soldiers in late-March, prompting many of his followers to surrender.

The military is confident that the threat on Basilan has receded and recently declared 29 barangays free from Abu Sayyaf influence. This included areas of Isabela city and in the towns of Al-Barka, Hadji Muhtamad, Maluso, and Ungkaya Pukan, where once-frequent skirmishes are now rare. The military said its observations found no evidence of community support or resource generation for the group, and no sign of extremist teaching or radicalization in Islamic schools on the Muslim-majority island.  

Sulu hideout under pressure

The neighbouring island of Sulu saw a higher threat from Abu Sayyaf in recent years. Militants there killed scores in a string of suicide bombings from 2018 to 2020, targeting military installations and a Catholic church. Yet rather than signalling a permanent shift in tactics, the blasts appear an explosive last act by extremists aware they were on the run and keen to cause maximum damage before being caught. A month before the final blast, in July 2020, the military reported that Abu Sayyaf’s leader in Sulu, Hatib Hajan Sawadjaan, had been killed in an encounter near Patikul. His body was never found and the group never confirmed his death—but he has not been sighted since, and is presumed dead.

Since killing scores of churchgoers in bombings in Jolo in 2019, Abu Sayyaf’s capabilities on the island have been degraded by the Philippine military. (Image Source: PCOO)

Hatib’s bomb-making nephew, Mundi Sawadjaan, is now the group’s leading figure in Sulu. Two of his brothers were killed by the military last year: Mujafal Sawadjaan died in Patikul in April, while Al-Al Sawadjaan was shot dead in Jolo last June. But despite rumours of his death, Mundi is likely to still be alive. According to local intelligence reports, he was sighted in January buying food supplies but is likely now in a safe house and reliant on relatives for support. Mundi’s uncle Hatib Majid Saeed (alias Amah Pattit) and veteran Radullan Sahiron remain key leaders in Sulu, though the latter’s faction has lain low for years and has not aligned with Islamic State like the Sawadjaan clan. The military reports that, as of 2021, Abu Sayyaf fighters in Sulu numbered 132, down from 300-400 in the last few years.

Links between the Islamic State and Sawadjaan’s cohort are now only symbolic, with financial ties severed after the group was defeated in Iraq and Syria. Profits from kidnappings have also reduced sharply. The last recorded Abu Sayyaf kidnapping-at-sea was in January 2020, when five Indonesian fishermen were seized from a vessel off Tambisan island, near the Malaysian sea border. They were rescued by the Philippine military last March, after a boat being used to transport them overturned in high seas. With commercial vessels avoiding the area, Abu Sayyaf now holds no known captives.   

Philippine military build-up

The group’s demise on its island hideouts is mainly due to military pressure. The Philippine armed forces has gradually built up its troop numbers on Sulu in recent years, and by 2022 had a force of 4,500 soldiers—the entire 11th Infantry Division—deployed to the province. This cohort consists of experienced fighters that have been reassigned from other battalions. The division is based in Jolo and has operational responsibility for combating the threat from Abu Sayyaf across the entire Sulu archipelago—which also encompasses the island provinces of Basilan to the east and Tawi-Tawi to the west. Philippine forces carry-out ground raids and have launched regular aerial bombardments which have killed scores of militants hiding out in Sulu’s mountainous and thickly-forested interior.

Malaysia’s supporting role

Malaysia’s Eastern Sabah Security Command (ESSCOM) has also played its part, imposing a nightly curfew for civilian boats in the waters of the Eastern Sabah Security Zone (ESSZ) to deny Abu Sayyaf targets for kidnapping, while leaving any militant vessels that venture into the area after dusk clearly identifiable. The heavily-policed ESSZ stretches along 1,457km of coast, and covers 58,420km2 of sea area and 32,158km2 of land area. Malaysian authorities have sought to prevent the jungles of Sabah becoming a hiding place or a base for Abu Sayyaf militants to launch kidnappings-at-sea—with seven such plots thwarted since the start of 2020. Last May, an Abu Sayyaf cell found to have set up camp in Sabah was dismantled—eight militants, all Filipino nationals, were captured by ESSCOM troops in the town of Beaufort, before another five militants wielding firearms and machetes were shot dead in a firefight when Malaysian troops discovered makeshift dwellings in a nearby mangrove swamp.

Malaysia plans to strengthen its defences along the coast to prevent future incursions. Last year it announced plans for two new control posts in Kuala Meruap and Siguntur, and a maritime forward operations base on Tambisan island, which has seen several past kidnappings off its coast. ESSCOM commander Ahmad Faud Othman has also requested another six surveillance aircraft and 35 radar-equipped patrol boats from the Malaysian government. Joint trilateral naval and air patrols carried-out in the Sulu Sea by Malaysian, Philippine and Indonesian ships and planes will also be intensified after an agreement between the respective defence ministers at a recent meeting in Kuala Lumpur.

Peace in the Bangsamoro?

Military might aside, the local political context in Mindanao also helps explain Abu Sayyaf’s decline. The self-governed Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM) was inaugurated in 2019 and precipitated a sharp reduction in violence. The two oldest Moro separatist groups in the region—the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) and Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF)—have both laid down arms and committed to politics, setting up political parties to contest local elections. The democratic governance structures of the BARMM, led by MILF chair Al Haj Murad Ebrahim, have brought stability, and retain the support of Muslims who voted en masse for the region’s formation.

With the 40,000 rebels of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front disarming, only Abu Sayyaf and a few other radical Islamist groups are left fighting. (Image Source: Geneva Call)

As a result, Islamist militant groups allied with Abu Sayyaf on mainland Mindanao are also suffering. In Lanao, Faharudin Hadji Satar (alias Abu Zacaria), the supposed “emir” of Islamic State in Southeast Asia, leads just 60-70 remaining fighters of the Maute Group, while the extreme Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters are hiding-out in ever-smaller numbers in the marshlands of central Maguindanao. Having rapidly lost public support since the BARMM was inaugurated, these groups have been under constant aerial bombardment by the military and now operate only in small, geographically-isolated pockets of territory, unable to carry-out bombings and sieges of major cities like they did previously.

Despite their near capitulation, these remaining Islamist fighters should not be written off just yet. Abu Sayyaf poses a particular threat. While foreign fighters are unable to join and overseas funding has been extinguished, the local element remains a problem due to the unique history of the islands the militants call home. A lower proportion of residents in Sulu—which was once the revered centre of a pre-colonial Islamic sultanate existing from 1415 until the 1900s—voted for the BARMM than in any of its other four component provinces. The archipelago is also struggling to reap the rewards of the BARMM, with Sulu and Basilan remaining the poorest provinces in the Philippines—the poverty rate in Sulu is 71.9% compared to the BARMM average of 39.4%, giving separatism a lingering pull.

Yet Abu Sayyaf is at its lowest ebb since its formation as a radical splinter of the MNLF in the early-1990s. After thirty years of militancy, the Philippine military has its best opportunity yet to end the violence in the Sulu archipelago, and with the help of the BARMM, push Abu Sayyaf to the margins.

A version of this article was first published on Asia Sentinel.

Duterte Passes the Philippines’ Maoist Rebellion on to the Next President

Michael HartLeave a comment
Rodrigo Duterte promised to end the insurgency via peaceful means during his 2016 election campaign, but talks collapsed less than a year into his presidency. (Image Source: Prachatai)

“If [you] find [yourselves] in an armed encounter with communist rebels, kill them, make sure you really kill them, and finish them off if they are alive.” Those were the orders of Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte, addressed directly to soldiers last March, with his administration entering its final stretch. “Forget about human rights,” Duterte added, “that’s my order. I’m willing to go to jail.” Six years earlier on the campaign trail, Duterte had vowed to end the insurgency, waged by the Maoist rebels of the New People’s Army (NPA) since the 1970s, via peaceful means if he became president.

Yet with just weeks left in office after his successor is elected on 9 May, Duterte is set to join the list of Philippine leaders in the post-1986 democratic era to have failed to end the NPA’s campaign. This is despite peace talks having taken place under all six presidents since dictator Ferdinand Marcos was overthrown, and despite efforts by Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) troops to inflict a decisive military blow. Duterte, as the first president to hail from the rebel heartlands of eastern Mindanao, was better placed to end the insurgency than his predecessors, so what explains the latest failure?

A short-lived peace dialogue

Upon winning the presidency in 2016, Duterte announced a unilateral ceasefire with the NPA in his first State of the Nation address. Talks got underway that August, with four rounds of dialogue held in Oslo, Rome, and Amsterdam over the next year. By November 2017, the peace process was dead. Rebel attacks resumed and a fragile truce between the two sides collapsed, after Duterte refused to release political prisoners. Dialogue was terminated by the government, which labelled the NPA and its political parent body—the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP)—as terrorist organizations.  

In the years since, Duterte’s presidency has seen unrelenting clashes between soldiers and the NPA, and frequent rebel ambushes in their rural strongholds in eastern Mindanao, across the Visayas, and northern Luzon. Relations between the government and the CPP—still led by its founder, Jose Maria Sison, now 83 years-of-age and and living in self-imposed exile in the Netherlands—fell to an all-time low under Duterte, a former student of Sison’s while studying at university. In 2021, the government designated Sison and another 18 senior CPP leaders as terrorists, later applying the same label to the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP), which represents the CPP in formal peace talks.

Manila has repeatedly ruled out reviving political dialogue and Duterte has stated that unless rebels stop attacking military patrols, “no peace talks can ever succeed under me or any other president.”

With peace negotiations dead, Duterte’s alternative policy was to establish a National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC). Since 2018, the task force has overseen the work of provincial peace panels, set-up to initiate dialogue between local political and community leaders and NPA ground commanders, in an effort to reduce violence. In a parallel process, the government has also encouraged rebels to surrender in return for livelihood aid, including housing, jobs training, and cash handouts, via the Enhanced Comprehensive Local Integration Programme (E-CLIP). Duterte has praised these two initiatives for “addressing the root causes” and deviating from the “traditional military approach,” yet despite impacting some localities they have not altered the national picture.

‘Red-tagging’ and AFP crackdown

The NTF-ELCAC has also been caught-up in accusations of ‘red-tagging,’ reviving a harmful practice associated with the Marcos dictatorship, whereby political opponents—including journalists, rights activists, and lawmakers from the left-leaning Makabayan bloc—have been publicly labelled by the state as communist sympathizers. The proliferation of red-tagging is a visible symptom of Duterte’s authoritarian governance style in which dissent is rarely tolerated and hostile rhetoric from the top openly encourages vigilante violence. The main figurehead of the NTF-ELCAC, Gen. Antonio Parlade, was forced to resign last year to “ease pressure” on the body, after the repeated use of his position to attack government critics and spread fake news about the insurgency undermined peace efforts.

Rebel ambushes on troops delivering aid during natural disasters and the COVID-19 pandemic soured relations between the NPA and the government. (Image Source: US Embassy Jakarta)

While the NTF-ELCAC has pushed on with its artificial outreach to the NPA, the AFP has at the same time maintained that it can end the insurgency on the battlefield. Speaking in December, new chief-of-staff of the military, Lt.-Gen. Andres Centino, rallied troops to defeat the rebels by the conclusion of Duterte’s term in office on 30 June. While similar deadlines in recent years have been left unmet, the latter stages of Duterte’s presidency have seen an intensified counter-insurgency campaign. On 16 August last year, 19 rebels were killed during an AFP raid on an NPA camp and explosives factory in Dolores, Eastern Samar province, while on 1 December a similar operation in Miagao town, Iloilo province, killed 16 rebels. The AFP has also targeted senior figures in recent months, killing the chief of the NPA’s National Operations Command, Jorge Madlos (alias Ka Oris), in Bukidnon province, and the most senior rebel commander in Mindanao, Menandro Villanueva (alias Bok), in Davao de Oro.

But despite these losses, the NPA has retained its strength nationally. The reasons for this are rooted in both geography and history—and explain the endurance of the NPA beyond Duterte’s presidency.

Strategic and ideological edge

Across an expansive maritime nation of more than 7,000 islands, the NPA has a broad geographical presence, and is active in at least 69 of the Philippines’ 81 provinces. This makes the group more or less impossible to defeat via conventional military means. The strategic adoption of guerilla tactics, whereby rebels operate out of densely-forested, mountainous, and largely inaccessible terrain as a deliberate choice, plays to their advantage, with the NPA able to take soldiers and police officers by surprise by ambushing them on rural roads before retreating. Rifles, often looted from army bases, and rudimentary explosive devices capable of delivering a quick blow, are the insurgents’ weapons of choice in a war designed to demoralize the enemy rather than defeat it outright. A commitment to this grinding approach, along with the decentralized nature of rebel units, which are divided into small groups of fighters moving between temporary camps, have enabled the insurgency to persist.

Also in the rebels’ favor is their ideological coherence. Since the formation of the CPP in 1968, and the NPA a year later, both entities have remained closely intertwined, with minimal factionalism or splintering. Sison, who founded the movement as a young student activist, remains at the head of the CPP-NPA today, with the strategy he outlined in the 1970s in Philippine Society and Revolution and Specific Characteristics of Our People’s War still underpinning the group’s anti-capitalist stance. The refusal of the NPA to give up its core demand to replace the Manila government with a socialist system has blocked progress in peace talks under six successive governments—including Duterte’s.

A steady stream of new recruits has also been key to the NPA sustaining its campaign. Despite the NTF-ELCAC reporting the surrender of 20,500 rebels since Duterte came to office in 2016—a figure overstated for propaganda purposes, which likely includes mostly family members of NPA fighters and ‘supporters’ of the movement rather than armed rebels—the AFP acknowledges that the NPA still has 3,500 fighters across at least 43 rebel fronts, with around 1,000 fighters based in the rebel stronghold of eastern Mindanao. These estimates are broadly in line with the NPA’s strength over recent decades, which since the early-2000s the military has reported annually to be around 3,000–4,000. After suffering losses, the NPA retains the ability to replenish its ranks from the impoverished rural areas in which it operates, which economically lag far behind Manila and main provincial cities.

Taking on the next president

It is clear that after five decades of insurgency, the only way to end the conflict is a peace deal with the CPP at the national level. With Duterte having ruled out talks for his remaining weeks in power, what odds the next president can tame the NPA? If Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr.—the current favorite, with Sara Duterte-Carpio as his running mate—were to win the election, it would likely be more of the same. While he may not repeat his father’s crackdown of the 1980s when the NPA was at its strongest, he has vowed to support the NTF-ELCAC and is likely to replicate Duterte’s strategy: initially offer peace negotiations but revert to a strongman approach upon the first sign of fracture.

If he wins the presidency, Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. is likely to continue Duterte’s policy on the NPA, supporting localized talks through NTF-ELCAC. (Image Source: Bongbong Marcos)

Marcos’ main rival, liberal candidate Leni Robredo, has at times criticized the NTF-ELCAC and struck a more conciliatory tone, pledging to deflect from “militaristic approaches to ending internal armed conflict” in order to create a “conducive environment” for peace talks. Her opponents in the present administration, some of whom Robredo accuses of red-tagging her, might argue that Robredo’s plan would backfire, enabling the NPA to use any peace process as a useful pretext to quietly bolster their ranks and regain strength. Yet any president looking to reboot political talks would face a similar risk; as all six previous incumbents of Malacañang have discovered. That Duterte—once a friend of Sison, and sympathetic to the socialist cause—failed to secure peace, only emphasizes the size of the task.

A version of this article is also published on Asia Sentinel.

What Delayed Elections Mean for the Southern Philippines’ Bangsamoro Peace Process

Michael HartLeave a comment
The term of the interim Bangsamoro Transition Authority has been extended by three years, delaying parliamentary elections from 2022 to 2025. (Image Source: BARMM Parliament)

On 28 October, Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte signed a law postponing the first parliamentary elections in the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM) from 2022 to 2025. The bill had been approved by lawmakers in the Senate and House of Representatives in September, after a year of campaigning from the Bangsamoro Transition Authority (BTA)—fronted by the former rebels of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF)—to extend their mandate to govern. Interim Chief Minister Al Haj Murad Ebrahim, in power since the region was formed in 2019, had argued that more time was needed to strengthen democratic institutions after setbacks amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

Yet delaying the elections is a risky move in a region plagued by separatist violence for generations. The process of decommissioning MILF rebels and their weapons is not yet complete, whilst Islamist militant groups remain a threat, despite being on the back foot and confined to operating in remote marshlands and outlying islands—for now at least. It is within this fragile peace, that the BTA strives to develop accountable governance and nurture a thriving democratic culture in the BARMM, while avoiding the failings of a past experiment in self-governance—the now-defunct Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM), which from 1989–2019 was sunk by corruption and mismanagement.

Elections delayed

An extension to the Bangsamoro transition, initially set to end with elections in May 2022—at which time the BTA’s mandate would expire, and elected lawmakers would take office—was first proposed a year ago, with President Duterte supporting Ebrahim’s proposal to move the polls to 2025. Despite initial legislative progress and the passing of priority laws on forming a civil service and administering the BARMM, responding to COVID-19 came to dominate the BTA’s agenda and led to louder calls for an extension as the passage of other key laws on elections, revenue, and local politics were delayed.

Any extension required approval by Manila. After being debated for months by three committees of the Philippine House of Representatives—on Suffrage and Electoral Reforms, Muslim Affairs, and on Peace, Reconciliation, and Unity—the law to extend the Bangsamoro transition passed in the Senate on 6 September and in the House on 15 September, where 187 lawmakers voted in favor, with none  against and no abstentions. The bill amended Republic Act 11054 known as the Bangsamoro Organic Law (BOL), the legislation which had encoded the peace deal with the MILF and created the BARMM.

Approximately 40,000 Moro Islamic Liberation Front rebels are set to disarm in exchange for livelihood support. The process was delayed amid COVID-19. (Image Source: Mark Navales)

It means President Duterte can now appoint 80 new members of the BTA to assume office after the term of the current transitional authority expires next May. The appointees will govern the BARMM for a three-year term until the rescheduled 2025 polls. However, a provision of the BOL granting the MILF leadership of the region stays in place, meaning 41 of the BTA lawmakers must be members of the MILF, and will be nominated by its central committee. During a Senate debate on the law, it was suggested that the five BARMM provincial governors will play a role in selecting the other 39 places.

Rebel disarmament

Tied to the peace deal is the disarmament of MILF rebels. This process is not governed by the BOL, but by a precursor accord—the 2014 Comprehensive Agreement on the Bangsamoro (CAB). It was expected that the entire 40,000-strong contingent of the MILF’s Bangsamoro Islamic Armed Forces (BIAF) would be demobilized by mid-2022. By March 2020, the first two phases were complete, with 12,145 rebels demobilized and 2,175 weapons turned in. The pace then slowed to a trickle as COVID-19 arrived in the Philippines, with only another 1,500 fighters processed since. Demobilized fighters received initial cash handouts, but wider livelihood support programs have yet to be fully delivered.

Decommissioning the remainder of the rebels will be crucial to securing peace. On 8 November, the third phase of decommissioning resumed at the Old Capitol building in Sultan Kudarat, Maguindanao province, one of five “assembly and processing sites” to open near former MILF camps. Strict COVID-19 protocols and swab-testing overseen by the BARMM Ministry of Health is in place. Phase three of the process, overseen by the Turkish-led International Decommissioning Body (IDB), will demobilize 14,000 BIAF members—7,000 by the end of January, and the remainder in the first months of 2022.

Militants fading

Not all combatants in Mindanao are intent on giving up their arms. Radical groups which splintered from the MILF and its precursor, the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF), are still active. Though with the majority of the BARMM’s 4.5 million residents supportive of the BTA these rogue elements are under increasing pressure. In central Maguindanao, at the heart of the new autonomous region, the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters (BIFF) face bombardment by the Philippine military. Over two days in late-September, 16 BIFF militants hiding-out in marshlands in Shariff Saydona Mustapha were killed by artillery fire and airstrikes, with the rebels providing little match for Philippine forces.  

Islamist militant networks in the BARMM are declining in strength. Remnants in Maguindanao and Sulu face aerial bombardment by the Philippine military. (Image Source: Matthew Hulett)

The BIFF broke away from the MILF in 2008 due to dissatisfaction over the peace negotiations with Manila, but its influence within local communities is fading. The BIFF’s three factions—led by Ustadz Karialan, Ismail Abubakar, and Abu Turaife—have become isolated and marginalized, with members split over a past pledge of allegiance to the Islamic State. The Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) claims there are just a few hundred BIFF rebels remaining and has pledged an intensified campaign.    

On the outer edges of the BARMM in northern Lanao and the Sulu islands, other militants persist in smaller numbers from the Maute Group and Abu Sayyaf. These groups, aligned to the Islamic State, have been unable to carry-out major attacks for some years—such as the 2016 Davao night market bombings, the May-October 2017 siege of Marawi, and the cathedral blasts in Jolo in January 2019, which killed scores of civilians, but ultimately failed to disrupt the government-MILF peace process.

The AFP struck a major blow just weeks ago by killing senior Islamic State leader Salahuddin Hassan during a raid in Talayan. It is also likely that notorious Abu Sayyaf leader Hatib Hajan Sawadjaan was killed in clashes with troops last year, but no body has been recovered and his fate remains unclear.

Building livelihoods

Governance and security are the immediate priorities for the BTA, but securing a long-term peace will be impossible without economic growth and prosperity in the BARMM. It is crucial that voters see progress and opportunity to prevent a slide back toward conflict. The BARMM’s economy was hit hard by the COVID-19 pandemic, with growth falling by 1.9% in 2020, yet the impact was lower than at the national level with the Philippines as a whole seeing a drop of 9.6%. The BTA is pinning its hopes on a rebound, with Chief Minister Ebrahim declaring the region “open for business” and calling on rich Islamic nations such as Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and Malaysia to invest in the BARMM.

The region has huge potential for growth in areas like Halal products and Islamic banking, and can also count on agriculture and natural resources for revenue. Entrepreneurship is reported to be on the rise, but amidst all this the key will be securing livelihoods for ex-combatants and supporters of the Moro separatist struggle. Not all BIAF fighters supported the delay to the BARMM elections, and some have complained of “technocrats” receiving benefits in power while ex-rebels lack job security. That remains the big question facing the MILF leadership: how to ensure the transition from guerilla warfare to civilian life also works for rank-and-file fighters. They now have until 2025 to figure it out.

A version of this article is also published on Geopolitical Monitor.

Militarization and Cycles of Violence Fuel Separatism in Southern Thailand

Michael HartLeave a comment
Muslims in Thailand’s four southern provinces have lived under emergency rule, first imposed by the civilian government of Thaksin Shinawatra, since 2005. (Image Source: udeyismail)

In the early hours of 3 August, rebels encircled a small Thai military outpost in Narathiwat province on the land border with Malaysia, before launching pipe bombs and opening fire with M-16 and AK-47 assault rifles. After a 15-minute gun battle, one Thai soldier was dead while four others had been injured before the insurgents fled across the Kolok River. Authorities suggested the attack may have been revenge for the killing of a suspected rebel by government troops in Pattani the previous day.

The night-time assault was one of a series of incidents of localized violence in the past few months, which typify the sporadic nature of the insurgency in Thailand’s Deep South. Muslim rebel groups in Thailand’s four Malay-speaking southern provinces have fought for independence for decades, with their motivation rooted in the conquest of the region by the Kingdom of Siam in 1785, and the 1909 Anglo-Siamese Treaty which first marked the border between Thailand and neighbouring Malaysia.

Violence is far from the scale of past years, with the last surge coming in the mid-2000s when then-prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra ordered a military crackdown. An ongoing ‘‘State of Emergency’’ and intermittent peace talks with rebel factions have since kept the conflict under control—though the current dialogue process, between the government and the Barisan Revolusi Nasional, stopped at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020, placing this uneasy partial stalemate at risk.   

Pattern of insurgent attacks

Amidst the pandemic, violence has remained at a low level, with fighters linked to Barisan Revolusi Nasional and a collection of smaller factions engaging in shootings and bombings, usually targeting security forces. It is often the case that one incident—such as a military raid, or rebel ambush—will spark a wave of retaliatory violence before the conflict recedes only to later re-emerge somewhere else in the affected regions of Narathiwat, Pattani, Songkhla, and Yala, triggering another response.

A series of connected incidents in recent months evidence this trend. On 21 June, the military shot dead two suspected insurgents holed up in a hotel at a beach resort in the Yaring district of Pattani. Authorities said the men were tracked down after their involvement in an ambush in April that had killed three civilians as they traversed a highway in a nearby district. A motive for that incident was not uncovered, though police suspected it was in retaliation for the shooting of a rebel days earlier.

Guerilla-style attacks by Barisan Revolusi Nasional rebels have continued amid the COVID-19 pandemic, often targeting police and army forces on rural roads. (Image Source: udeyismail)

On 5 July, another stand-off between soldiers and rebels triggered a similar chain of incidents. Eight suspects being pursued by soldiers besieged the Ma’had Subulussalam Islamic School in Pattani, and two were shot dead after a 17-hour gunfight. The military maintains that it offered rebels the chance to surrender. The six fighters that fled and evaded capture were linked by police to a mine explosion the next day in nearby Songkhla province, which killed one soldier and left another three wounded.

Other incidents tagged on rebels in the Deep South are more random, targeting vital infrastructure. In August, a cargo train sustained minor damage in a bombing in Narathiwat, while in the past, cash machines and electricity pylons have also been targeted, causing economic disruption in the region.

Local violence and peace efforts

It is unclear to what extent orders are given by the Barisan Revolusi Nasional leadership. Although it represents most fighters on the ground, thought to number in the low-to-mid hundreds, separatists based in the south operate more like cells: ideologically coherent with but logistically separate from the main organization. Past talks between Bangkok and the umbrella Mara Patani group launched in 2013 ultimately failed because the senior negotiators could not control fighters on the ground, with rebels operating autonomously in local contexts and maintaining their campaign of armed assaults.

Barisan Revolusi Nasional would likely exert more influence over rebels than Mara Patani managed, if peace talks resume or if a ceasefire is signed. Yet the extent to which attacks would stop is unclear as rebels in Southern Thailand do not form an organized and well-trained force with a hierarchy and command structure, for example like the militarized Muslim separatist groups in the Philippines that now govern an autonomous region following a peace deal. Such an agreement in Southern Thailand, where attacks are small-scale and rebels do not hold territory for bargaining, is difficult to envisage.  

Lifting the Emergency Decree

The ‘‘State of Emergency’’ in the region, which was been in place for 16 years and was extended on 20 September for another three months, acts as a container for the violence. It was first imposed by the civilian administration of Thaksin Shinawatra in July 2005, and his policy of militarizing the south has been maintained by a succession of both elected and military governments, after coups in 2006 and 2014. There has been no change under the current quasi-civilian regime of Prayuth Chan-ocha.

Previous talks, held with the Mara Patani rebel grouping from 2013, failed to make progress as separarist attacks undermined the Malaysia-hosted peace process. (Image Source: Prachatai)

While the Emergency Decree has avoided a major escalation or the northerly spread of the conflict, it has raised local tensions, and made communities in the Malay-speaking south fearful of suspicion by association. The law permits authorities in the south to detain suspected rebels for up to 30 days without charge, and among the triggers of rebel attacks are allegations of torture and mistreatment of detainees at the hands of the military. Cases have been documented by human rights groups but the Thai military denies using illegal methods or extracting forced confessions during interrogations.

For many Muslims in the south, emergency rule—which treats them differently to other citizens of Buddhist-majority Thailand—has been counter-productive and should be lifted to aid peace efforts. The military views it the other way around. Last month, spokesman Col. Kiattisak Neewong told the Bangkok Post that as the area is ‘‘under the influence of insurgent groups’’ and sees regular attacks, ‘‘special laws’’ are needed to ‘‘keep peace and order’’ before the emergency measure can be lifted.

Political dialogue stalled

Efforts to secure peace at the negotiating table are halted. Face-to-face meetings between the Thai government and Barisan Revolusi Nasional negotiating panels, in a Malaysia-facilitated process, have not taken place since two rounds of talks in Kuala Lumpur in January and March 2020. Limited virtual discussions have been held, but not since February 2021, with the COVID-19 pandemic—resurgent in both Thailand and Malaysia in recent months—preventing crucial in-person dialogue from resuming. Momentum must be regained if the core issue—the future status of the four southern provinces—is to be resolved. Despite an erosion of trust in the Deep South and cycles of violence at the local level, the insurgency remains small enough for talks to gain the upper hand. Further delay only brings risk.

A version of this article is also published on Geopolitical Monitor.

West Papua Braced for Violence as Indonesia Vows to Crush Separatists

Michael HartLeave a comment
After the killing of a regional intelligence chief in an ambush by separatists in April, Indonesia deployed 400 troops to Papua from the 315/Garuda battalion. (Image Source: U.S. Army)

On 25 April, separatists in Papua shot dead Indonesia’s head of intelligence for the restive region. Brig.-Gen. I Gusti Putu Danny Karya Nugraha was killed during a roadside ambush on his convoy in the remote Puncak regency, making him the most senior military official to be killed in the conflict over Indonesia’s easternmost territory. The West Papua National Liberation Army (TPNPB)—which has battled for independence since Jakarta annexed the region in a flawed referendum in the late-1960s following the end of colonial rule by the Netherlands—claimed responsibility for the attack.

Indonesian president Joko Widodo was quick to respond. In a televised statement on 26 April, the day after the ambush, he appeared alongside security chiefs and ordered the police and military to ‘‘pursue and arrest’’ armed rebels in an intensified crackdown. Indonesia has often been accused by human rights activists of deploying heavy-handed tactics and discriminating against Papua’s native Melanesian population, who are predominantly Christian—a minority in a Muslim-majority nation. Yet rebels have also been linked to atrocities and have killed teachers and road workers in attacks.

Indonesia deploys troops

Papuans are now braced for more violence. It was reported in May that Indonesia had deployed an additional 400 troops to Papua, from the battle-hardened 315/Garuda battalion. Its soldiers gained the nickname ‘‘Satan troops’’ after involvement in past conflicts in East Timor, but army spokesman Brig.-Gen. Prantara Santosa has insisted their deployment to Papua is just part of a routine rotation and that the personnel being sent are ‘‘trained infantry troops, not special forces’’. The military has 7,000 troops in the region, while an additional 1,200 police officers have been deployed since April.

Indonesia’s national police intelligence chief, Paulus Waterpauw, told Reuters in an interview on 21 May that efforts to tackle the insurgency would be co-ordinated through a task force established in 2018, known as Operation Nemangkawi, which aims to ‘‘wipe out’’ armed rebels in Papua’s Central Highlands region—where they are strongest due to knowledge of the remote, mountainous terrain. Since the April ambush, the government has also moved to formally designate Papuan rebel groups as ‘‘terrorists’’, permitting authorities to detain suspects for up to 21 days without charge. However, it is understood the elite police counter-terrorism unit, Densus 88, has not been deployed to Papua.  

Fear of military atrocities

Leaders of the separatist movement fear that a renewed crackdown will be accompanied by human rights abuses. Benny Wenda, a long-time figurehead of the Papuan liberation struggle, living in exile in the United Kingdom, recently described resistance as ‘‘legitimate and necessary’’, and called for a dialogue to resolve the conflict. In his words, independence advocates consider Indonesia’s rule ‘‘an illegal invasion and occupation’’ and view separatist forces as battling to ‘‘expel an illegal colonizer’’.

Indonesian President Joko Widodo has ordered the military and police to ”pursue and arrest” armed separatists in an intensified security crackdown in Papua. (Image Source: uyeah)

Indonesia has launched a firmer clampdown on such political expression since the April ambush. On 9 May, police detained high-profile activist Victor Yeimo and charged him with treason for calling for a referendum on Papuan independence. Human Rights Watch has documented 43 similar arrests of activists or protest leaders since pro-independence street demonstrations erupted across the region in August 2019, which saw large-scale civil unrest in cities such as Jayapura, Manokwari, Sorong and Wamena. Several activists have received lengthy prison sentences despite not partaking in violence.

In April, United Nations human rights spokeswoman Ravina Shamdasani told reporters of ‘‘credible reports of excessive use of force by the military and police’’ in Papua including ‘‘extrajudicial killings, arbitrary arrests and the detention of indigenous Papuans’’. Human Rights Watch Asia Director Brad Adams, meanwhile, recently warned Indonesia to ‘‘ensure that all security force operations in Papua are carried out in accordance with the law and that peaceful activists and civilians are not targeted’’.

An internet blackout in parts of Papua since the April ambush have compounded fears that a broad military operation is about to be launched. In provincial capital Jayapura, and surrounding regions—covering an area home to approximately 500,000 people—disrupted service and connectivity issues have been reported regularly in recent weeks. Jakarta has blamed the repeat outages on a damaged undersea cable though many suspect the authorities are trying to restrict media coverage of events.

Unresolved historical grievances

Sporadic clashes and displacement have been reported in Papua in May and June, in the absence of any desire for dialogue from Jakarta. At the other end of the Indonesian archipelago, in Aceh, rebels laid down their weapons in the 2000s, after talks with the government resolved a separatist dispute. Yet in Aceh, a smaller disputed territory, Islamist rebels proved easier for the government to engage and reach a settlement on autonomy. Papua, expansive and resource-rich by contrast, is considered an indivisible part of Indonesian territory by Jakarta while Papuan rebels demand full independence.

The Indonesian military, pictured in joint drills with US forces, has retained a stranglehold over Papua since the flawed ”Act of Free Choice” vote in 1969. (Image Source: US Embassy Jakarta)

The region was annexed through a flawed 1969 vote—known as the ‘‘Act of Free Choice’’—in which only 1,025 Papuans hand-picked by the military were selected to cast a ballot. A proper referendum on independence in Papua, which had been promised by the outgoing Dutch colonizers earlier in the decade, was never held and accordingly the western half of New Guinea island—today the provinces of Papua and West Papua—became part of Indonesia. This remains the primary source of grievance.

In the five decades that have passed, in-migration of Muslims from elsewhere in the archipelago has altered Papua’s demographics and left indigenous Papuans feeling increasingly marginalized. Mining operations, and the arrival of multinational firms at the invite of Jakarta, are also a source of growing tension in Papua. Widodo hopes that over time, the building of roads and the provision of services in Papua will lead Jakarta to be viewed more favourably by locals and blunt support for separatism. Yet as recent attacks—like April’s ambush—demonstrate, Papua’s rebels won’t go down without a fight.

A version of this article is also published on Geopolitical Monitor.